


Balloon

by geniusphilester (gorgeousnerd)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dissociation, Early Days, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/pseuds/geniusphilester
Summary: Your body was the string keeping the balloon from flying away.(Or, Dan remember how to live again.)
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: phandomficfests: escape from reality





	Balloon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Escape from Reality Day One: Point of View. The prompt is to write a story in first or second person POV, so naturally, I did a little of both. (But mostly second person.)

Your body was the string keeping the balloon from flying away.

It wasn't a choice, exactly. Or if it was, it was a choice others made for you. It was safer to be in the clouds. It wasn't all the time, not at first, but the older you got and the more school you endured, the easier it was to be out of your body and hovering where no one could reach you, but no one could hurt you, either.

When they hurt your body, you registered it distantly. It had to travel all the way up to you, after all. Your body would react to the hurt on its own, anyway, so you didn't have to be super involved. Maybe it wasn't the neatest way to go through the world, but it was better than cutting the string. 

Getting older meant other methods of survival. Alcohol, for one. Better attempts at lying. When you know exactly what people think of people like you, it's a lot easier to pretend you're someone else. You didn't exactly want to go to law school, but acknowledging you didn't would have required more connection than you were capable of, and anyway, better to pick a job you hated that made money than a job you hated that didn't.

But it also meant you could find windows where you didn't have to be someone else. Finding people who were like you.

You remember the first time you watched one of Phil's videos. It was impossible to forget because you were there, in your body in a way you hadn't been since you were a small child. It was fleeting, but it was something you hadn't felt in years.

He was a stranger on the other side of a computer screen. But you were surrounded by people who didn't know you, and it was easier to reach through the internet, somehow. To ask without asking for...it was hard to say, exactly.

Well, no, it wasn't. Not when you really thought about it.

You just wanted to be seen.

And, this was the strangest part of all, Phil saw you. He saw you, and he kept seeing you.

Slowly, but surely, you came back to yourself. To the raw, roiling pain that you had kept at bay for years. It seemed weird that falling in love could be so bad, when everything bad about it had nothing to do with the love itself. There was nothing wrong with Phil, nothing beyond the distance and your own failings as a person. Maybe you should have gotten your distance from Phil, but he wanted you to be around just as much as you wanted him, for some reason. You were too selfish to let go if Phil wanted something, even if that something was yourself.

You go to be closer. To feel Phil as a flesh and blood human. You've had your share of fooling around, but it wasn't this. He feels more real to you than you have ever felt to yourself. You touch him with wonder, and he touches you back. Even his little bites feel better than any pulling you've ever done.

You kiss him, and you feel alive, with all of its beautiful imperfections and complications.

No.

 _I_ feel alive.

I love you, Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> [Tumblr post](https://geniusphilester.tumblr.com/post/612900365733691392/balloon)


End file.
